No information on edition or printing is given on the copy. The author, Charles Sears Baldwin, is a Ph.D. and an instructor in rhetoric in Yale University. This manual for first term college students is divided into three parts: the composition as a whole, the paragraph, and the sentence. Intended to prepare and supplement writing knowledge before more special courses, Baldwin's college composition text is intended only to provide students with a structural system for composition. Baldwin advocates not writing strictly by rules; rather, he suggests a basic understanding of the principles of composition. In the introduction he states there are four kinds of writing: description, narration, persuasion, and exposition. This book focuses on applying its principles exclusively to exposition. It further advocates that its rules of construction be applied in the process of revision. It uses familiar terms such as unity, coherence, clearness, and emphasis. The Schultz Archive includes the text in its entirety, and the quality of the text is high.
1890 printing. The text is divided into Junior and Senior sections. The Junior section is further broken down into synthesis of simple sentences, practice in simple sentences, sentences, combined, punctuation, easy narrative, easy essays, letters, and grammar. The Senior section is broken down into on the choice of words, on the arrangement of words, grammar, the sentence, simile and metaphor, brevity, strength, miscellaneous sentences to be amended, miscellaneous subjects for composition, and notes for teachers. The book contains some 131 numbered exercises and 381 numbered rules or explanations of rules. The notes for teachers explains that composition naturally divides into three parts: elementary practice, instruction in correcting writing, and instruction in beautiful writing. The Schultz Archive copy is roughly the complete text.